


Soliloquy

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Grief and Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The clock says it’s two-thirty-six in the morning when Kurt finally decides he isn’t going to sleep. He sits up slowly on the couch and rubs his hands over his face. His limbs feel heavy with fatigue, but it’s not just physical exhaustion that weighs on his shoulders tonight.</p><p>Dialogue-free, angsty Kurt introspection set during Glee 4x10 (“Glee, Actually”) in the wee hours of Christmas morning</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soliloquy

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been wanting to write a fic about Kurt and how he feels about grief and loss, about his parents, about Blaine, about the hard realities of growing up, about how he’s been having to deal with them since he was small. I didn't get it all in here. There's so much more to be said. But it's a start.
> 
> There’s quite a lot of triumph in Kurt’s story, but not so much in this story about Kurt’s story beyond the fact of his personality. This one is meant to be sad. (And the title is meant to be less pretentious than it might seem.)
> 
> Warnings for angst, grief, loss, cancer, death of a parent, all canonical

The clock says it’s two-thirty-six in the morning when Kurt finally decides he isn’t going to sleep. He sits up slowly on the couch and rubs his hands over his face. His limbs feel heavy with fatigue, but it’s not just physical exhaustion that weighs on his shoulders tonight. He might have spent a busy Christmas Eve today enjoying the city with his dad and skating with Blaine, but it’s the emotion of the visit that’s making him slump forward with his elbows on his knees. It’s so much, so much he wasn’t prepared for. But how could he have been prepared for any of today?

The apartment is quiet, the only light that of the clock and the glow of the Christmas tree, and he wonders if making a cup of tea will wake up his dad or Blaine. His dad is snoring away in Kurt’s bed, the soft, rhythmic sounds a comforting background from his childhood, but Blaine is silent in Rachel’s. Kurt can’t be certain what that means, since he knows that Blaine doesn’t snore, but he decides not to risk making tea and disturbing him if he’s only sleeping lightly... or lying there awake.

It’s not like tea will solve any of Kurt’s problems, anyway. It’s just something to do, a familiar routine. It won’t fix anything.

Instead he stares at the tree, the one his dad brought this morning - how was it only this morning that his dad had shown up at the door unexpectedly? - with its ornaments old and new. The apple his dad gave them sparkles in the lights, its shiny red surface reflecting patches of silver light like some sort of fruit-shaped disco ball, and it makes the corner of his mouth twist to see it, almost happily. The Big Apple, his supposedly shiny new life.

He’s glad to have so many meaningful ornaments from home, because he’s always loved to decorate the tree not just with objects but with memories. That NASCAR ornament is still pretty hideous and not something he cares about for itself, but remembering spending that time with his dad is something he treasures. He loves seeing them all; they’re like a special scrapbook that only comes out at Christmas.

Still, it sits strangely in his heart for those ornaments to be hanging on a tree in his apartment in New York instead of in their living room in Lima where they’ve always been. He and his dad used to go over every story together as his father would admire the tree Kurt had invariably finished decorating before his dad was home from work. A glass of homemade eggnog in hand, they’d always spend a few minutes in front of his mother’s perfume bottle, sharing memories of her. It would start with his dad talking about her love of Christmas, but the stories would spin out from them both until they were misty-eyed with them, sharing her together, keeping her alive in their hearts.

Kurt’s grateful to have these precious ornaments, and he’s happy to see them and to have been able to talk about them this year even though he stayed in New York, but it’s weird that they’re not in Lima with his dad. They’re meant to be at _home_ , even if Kurt isn’t there, even if Kurt is trying to create a new home here.

But he needs to get used to it, because his home in Lima won’t be his forever. It won’t be _there_ forever.

Kurt takes a shuddering breath and tries not to think of what it is going to be like to walk through that front door and not be able to see his dad there in his favorite chair, for the house to be cold and dark, lifeless but for him in the front hall. For him to be the only one there, the only one who ever will be.

That’s not what’s going to happen, he reminds himself. His dad is alive, and the house isn’t just theirs now; there are Carole and Finn, too. That’s not what the future holds, not like that, no matter what happens with his dad’s cancer. The house won’t be empty anymore, Kurt’s alone.

He remembers it all too well, though, from when his father was in the hospital. He remembers cleaning up his single plate from dinner, the water in the sink the only sound in the house. He remembers putting himself to bed in silence and getting up alone in the morning. He remembers nothing in the house moving but what he touched, no half-read paper or coffee mug forgotten on the kitchen counter, no cap on the hall table, no mail taken inside, no curtains drawn but those he moved, himself. Kurt remembers his house feeling like a museum to the family he once had.

He remembers, too, just as vividly, letting himself into the house after school years before with the shiny new key his father had had made for him and the incomprehensible shock of being greeted for the first time - for the first of many, many, endless times, forever - with dark, still rooms instead of his mother’s warm smile and open arms. There was no hug, no snack, no _her_ waiting for him, not ever again.

He remembers his house feeling like anything but a home.

And it’s so close to happening again. His father has _cancer_.

Kurt stands up, his arms wrapping around his aching chest, and heads on stiff legs for the kitchen. He’ll have to risk waking Blaine with the sounds of preparing tea. He can’t just sit there and blink back tears all night. It’s ridiculous. His father said they’d caught the cancer early. The recovery rate is nearly a hundred percent. He’s worrying about something that probably won’t happen, at least not yet.

Still, the thought of his father dying is enough to make his breath catch in his throat, because he could. He could, and he will, if not from this then from something else, and if the past two years of good checkups had made that worry become slightly less immediate for Kurt the news tonight is enough to bring it all right to the front of his mind again.

Kurt hadn’t understood what was going on with his mother and why his parents looked so sad when they said they were going to the doctor, because he’d still been young enough to think that doctors could fix everything. He’d just watched her fade away and wondered when she’d be better. And then one day she was gone, and no amount of crying or waiting or wishing on birthday candles brought her back.

He hadn’t had time to prepare or worry with his father’s heart attack, because it had been so sudden; he’d only been able to react, to spend long hours at the hospital, to drift like a ghost through his days, and to hope and hope and hope that his father would wake up.

And he did, somehow he did, and he got better and got married and filled their new house with new family and new memories for them both.

But Kurt knows there are only so many times one can tempt fate before the inevitable happens. That his dad will die isn’t a question. It never has been, not even with the reprieve of the past two years of good health.

The cold reality of life that trickles down Kurt’s spine and turns his stomach into ice is the reminder that it’s only a matter of _when_.

Kurt _will_ lose him, and the only question is when.

The kettle whistles, and Kurt hurries it off of the burner to silence it. He doesn’t remember putting it on. He doesn’t remember getting his favorite mug from the shelf or a bag of Rachel’s chamomile tea from the canister, but there they are on the counter, ready for him the pour the water. So he does, steam rising up into his face like a poor student’s home facial.

He realizes suddenly that he didn’t do his full moisturizing routine tonight, and if that’s not enough to tell him how much the news of his father is hurting him he doesn’t know what is. Of course, it’s not just his dad who has thrown him for a loop. Blaine’s here. Blaine - Kurt doesn’t even know what to think about him being here, but somehow he is, handsome as ever, if more hesitant. It’s hard to see him, but it’s also comforting to know that he wants to be a steady support.

He just also knows with a prickle of tears in his eyes that it would be so much better, _so_ much easier, for him to deal with the news of his dad if Blaine were here as his boyfriend and not as his ex.

Drawing in a shaking breath, Kurt dips the teabag in the water and tells himself not to think about it. Blaine _isn’t_ his boyfriend. Blaine is just a friend, and even that much is desperately fragile.

Kurt knows that even now he could go to Blaine and Blaine would accept him. Blaine would pull back the covers - Rachel’s covers, because he’s in her room; Kurt can’t even think about Blaine lying in his own bed, not again, not after the last, horrible time - and open his arms, listen to him, soothe him, hug him, hold him, do far more. Whatever Kurt wanted, Blaine would give him. He’d do it right now. Kurt could put down his mug this very second, walk around the corner, and Blaine would be there for him, warm and willing.

But Kurt can’t do that.

The mug is almost too hot against his palms as he cradles it in both hands and goes back to the couch to sit once more. The heat feels good, though, something to focus on besides the pain in his heart.

He can’t go to Blaine. Kurt wishes he could, but he can’t, because he can’t depend on Blaine like that anymore. He can’t lean on him; he can’t let himself. They’ve broken up. He’s on his own now. Blaine can be his friend, but he’s not going to be at his side, not like he used to be.

Kurt has to do this alone. _Alone_. Again.

His dad could die, his dad will someday and maybe soon, and what makes that already desperately awful thought claw that much deeper into his heart is that Kurt won’t even have _Blaine_ there with him as he has to go through it.

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut until the urge to cry or to yell passes. His solitude is a tangible, twisting, horrible ache in his chest.

It would be very easy to get angry. At Blaine, at cancer, at the _world_. It would be easy to let his pain bloom into fury and frustration that he can’t just have what he wants, that life takes so much away, that even _Blaine_ \- who was supposed to be the person who celebrated and cried over everything with him, who was supposed to support him and be supported in return, who was supposed to be the one person who was different from all the people around Kurt who didn’t understand him and who made him feel alone even in a crowd - has taken something from him that Kurt never thought he’d lose. Blaine’s taken himself and all the two of them were away in a stupid choice made out of insecurity and the reality that he just didn’t believe in them enough. He didn’t believe in _Kurt_ , and today Kurt has to suffer for it yet again in a whole new way beyond his broken heart, because he shouldn’t _have_ to be sitting here on this couch by himself the way he is.

Blaine should be next to him. Blaine should be _with_ him. Blaine should be wrapped around him, holding his hand, worried and comforting. It would still be awful and unthinkable to have heard the news about his father, but it would be _so_ much easier with Blaine beside him.

But he isn’t.

Straightening up instead of curling around that added unfairness of the world, Kurt lets out a breath and feels the threat of anger ebb as the air escapes.

He doesn’t want to be angry. He doesn’t want to dwell in it. He might have a long and detailed memory of the wrongs done against him over the years, but he doesn’t want to hold a grudge or act out of resentment. He can’t. That’s not who he is. He wants to rise above it, be better than the people who hurt him, and succeed in his life. _That_ is who he is. When things hurt him, when people do, he is going hold his head high and move forward, and he’s going to succeed.

Even if he’s doing it alone.

His father snorts his way through another snore from Kurt’s bed, and Kurt takes a sip of tea, the hot liquid scalding the roof of his mouth but washing away the bitter taste of sadness. The tea warms his chest and his churning stomach, easing some of the tension he’s holding in his body and drawing him back towards his center.

He knows too well by now that he’s going to lose people he holds dear over and over and over again, often without warning, never when he expects it, sometimes through their own choices, but he also knows he can live through it. He’s done it before, and as much as he hates it he will do it again. It’s just the cold reality of life. Grief is a horrible, hollowing thing, a dark oil slick of sadness that colors his sight and leeches away his joy for a while, but it won’t destroy him.

That’s the good thing about having lived through loss before. He knows it will hurt, but he knows he can do it again.

Another good thing is that his father has Carole now. Kurt doesn’t need to be there to keep things running, to pay the bills, talk with doctors, or cook special meals. If his dad needs help to recover from whatever comes next, Carole can help him. He has people to care for him. Even Blaine says he’ll look after him.

So Kurt doesn’t have to worry about whether he should go home to be with him, as much as he wants to. He can stay here on his own and focus on NYADA and his own dreams.

 _But Dad will still have cancer_ , a voice whispers in the back of his head, and he is forced yet again to think about what it might be like if his father isn’t there to see him reach those dreams. He’s always imagined his father cheering in the front row at his Broadway debut. He’s always imagined his father dancing with him and smiling through his tears at his wedding.

What if he isn’t? What if those dreams don’t come true? What if he has to lose them, too?

Kurt’s breath catches again, grief clawing at his heart at the thought that his dad might not live to see either of those moments, and he wishes it were as easy to find comfort as it was when he was little and could crawl into bed with his father when he got scared or sad. Just the sound of his breathing and the heat from his body was enough to make him feel better, and then his dad would roll toward him and talk to him in his sleep-scratchy voice until Kurt was ready to go back to sleep, wrapped up in the covers and soothed by his love.

He pushes the memory away. He obviously can’t do that now. He’s not little, and he can’t put any of this on his dad. He can’t lean on him. He can’t ask anything of him. His dad needs to keep his strength for himself so that he can get better.

No, Kurt has to be strong on his own.

He _is_ strong. There’s no question about it.

He knows how to re-make himself after losses so deep that they rock him to his very core, not to become someone new but to build himself again, stronger and more sure of who he is, because life is too short and uncertain to be anything but himself.

So he listens to his father snore from afar and yawns over his tea while he looks at the Christmas tree filled with so many memories and makes himself get used to them being in a different place. The tree looks nice. It looks right, actually, if he takes away the weirdness of it being there at all. It doesn’t look out of place.

New York is his home now, no matter what happens with his dad. The world can shift, and Kurt can still be okay. He’s done it before.

Still, as he leans his head back against the top of the couch and attempts to settle his thoughts, he has to wish he weren’t so used to being _not_ alone, because even if he’s strong enough to do this on his own he’s grown used to having someone to lean on. He’s used to having _Blaine_ to lean on. He’s used to the solace of Blaine’s shoulder and strong arms, the warmth of his heart, the promise of his love. It’s a gnawing hole in Kurt’s chest, something so obviously missing, that he doesn’t have him now, that he can’t seek comfort in him, either.

He’s living without that rock-solid strength and love he’d always thought he’d had in Blaine. He’s living without someone to hold his hand, to hold _him_ , to cry with him and wait with him and stand by him through good and bad and everything else life has to offer. And he misses it.

Kurt looks with a gut-deep tug of longing toward the dark doorways of his room and Rachel’s, toward his dad and Blaine, people who used to be his safest places in the world.

Then he takes one last sip of tea and then reaches down to pull the throw over himself. The apartment is chilly, so he draws it all the way up to his ear as he snuggles down on the battered couch and closes his eyes. The lights of the tree sparkle on the other side of his lids, the only company he has, despite the other two men in the apartment, both of whom love him in their own ways. He loves them, too. He just can’t ask anything from them.

Kurt presses his eyes more tightly shut and feels the threat of tears burning in the back of his nose. He curls the blanket closer around his shoulders and pretends he doesn’t feel too small in a too-big room, too far from anyone who loves him but not able to move any closer.

He’s lost his mother, and he could lose his dad, and that’s just life. He’s lost Blaine, too. Life is loving someone and being loved by them, feeling happy and secure and right, and then one day them simply being gone, with no way to get them back, no way to have their love, not ever again, except in bittersweet memories.

It’s just how life works; it can be horrible and empty and devastating, but Kurt knows how to live it. His skin may feel brittle and paper-thin, every inch of it bruised, but it will still hold him together.

The sound quiet coughing drifts out of Rachel’s room, and Kurt freezes. It sounds like it’s deliberately being muffled, like Blaine’s awake, too.

Kurt lies there for a moment, every muscle tense and his heart thundering with shock and an unwelcome, bittersweet touch of hope, but only silence follows. Blaine doesn’t come out, doesn’t tiptoe to the bathroom or to get a glass of water, doesn’t pad to the doorway to check on Kurt with those warm, worried eyes that Kurt now has to resist as much as appreciate.

Blaine stays where he is, safely tucked in Rachel’s bed, and Kurt makes himself relax once more. It doesn’t matter if Blaine’s awake, after all. It has nothing to do with him. Kurt isn’t going to whisper his worries to him. He isn’t going to reach for the comfort Blaine would so easily and gratefully offer.

Kurt is just going to _sleep_.

And then he’s going to wake up in the morning and keep his head up and put one foot in front of the other.

Life isn’t a fairy tale. He can’t count on happy endings, as much as he dreams of them, as much as he’d thought going to New York and getting into NYADA would be one. There’s good and bad and everything in between in life, and sometimes there’s so much of the bad with the good that it feels like it’s impossible to breathe.

The important thing, Kurt reminds himself as he curls his fingers into the blanket and wills himself to rest, is to keep going, anyway.


End file.
